National Gallery worker sued bosses for racism after being asked to wear Kuwaiti f lag

A NATIONAL Gallery worker sued her bosses for racism after she was asked to wear a badge showing visitors she could speak Arabic.

Dana El Farra was asked if she would wear the Kuwaiti flag on her badge to identify her ‘mother tongue’, an employment tribunal heard.

Miss El Farra, who is British but has Kuwaiti parents and speaks Arabic, claimed request was ‘racially motivated’. The tribunal dismissed her claims.

Miss El Farra worked for Securitas as a Visitor Engagement Assistant at the National Gallery until November 2019.

The Central London tribunal heard Miss El Farra was offended by several comments from colleagues relating to her ethnicity. In one instance, a manager asked ‘what is this you are opening here, a market?’ when Miss El Farra put her coat and bag on a bench.

Miss El Farra argued the remark was ‘a scathing stereotype about Arab culture’. But the tribunal ruled the comment was was ‘directed at everyone’ at a team briefing.

In a later incident a different manager emailed Miss El Farra and another Arabic-speaking colleague asking what their native country is ‘to identify your mother tongue with the appropriate flag’. Miss El Farra ‘made it clear that she would object to wearing any flag other than a British one’.

The tribunal was told the manager asked because she was compiling a spreadsheet of languages spoken by the VEAs. It ruled the question was worded clumsily but acknowledged English was not the manager’s first language.

Dismissing the claims of racial discrimination and harassment, Employment Judge Frances Spencer said: ‘These comments do not meet the threshold where they can be said to have violated her dignity or created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment.’

‘Scathing stereotype’